Levang and Stites win NISG election

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At around 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 27, Jacob Levang and Jacob Stites were named the new NISG student body president and vice president, respectively for the 2019-2020 school year.

Around 80 students gathered in the Union to hear the results when they were announced.

Levang and Stites received 58 percent of the vote, with Amjad and McCutchen receiving 42 percent of the vote. Actual numbers have not been released as of this time, but should be released within the next week.

“We just want to thank everyone who’s supported us,” said Stites shortly after the results were announced. “We want to thank our entire team, everyone who attended our roundtables, everyone who voted for us. We want to thank our competitors for putting up a good fight. They really challenged us, made us think differently about some of our ideas on our platform, so, hoping that we can do what’s best.”

Levang echoed Stites sentiment and thanked their competition.

“I think they challenged us immensely and they made the student body get very engaged in this election, which I think is important, and civic engagement was great, and we saw that all throughout campus, and that was really awesome.”

Levang is a junior business management major from Des Moines, and Stites is a junior economics major, also from Des Moines.

Amjad and McCutchen’s campaign focused largely on diversity and inclusion, as well as NISG transparency and mental health and sexual violence prevention. One of the reasons they initially decided to run was because of a perceived lack of diversity on the bill by some UNI students.

“Honestly, that 58 percent, that’s shocking to me,” said McCutchen. “That’s really close. I mean, I study political science, and in elections, that’s pretty damn close. I think that it is encouraging that it was so close and that so many people got out and participated in the elections.”

“Congratulations to Levang and Stites,” Amjad said. “I’m glad we ran; we ran with our ethics and morals intact and we wish them a very happy administration. We hope that everything that they want to work for for the university at the end pays off, and we together, if they want, can make UNI a better place.”

McCutchen said that her experience running for student body vice president encouraged her to become more involved with NISG.

“It’s been an amazing experience, personally; definitely changed me,” McCutchen said. “I’ve met so many amazing people, really just connected with people that I never thought really that would be in our corner so it was really nice; a really nice experience to have. I feel like I am closer to UNI now.”

Amjad said that he and McCutchen plan to remain engaged with the student body and keep working toward creating positive change on UNI’s campus.

“I hope that [Levang and Stites] know that we are still here to support them and support anything that NISG puts forward,” he said. “Obviously, we both ran because we care a lot about this university, and so, if they ask for anything going forward, we will be there and we want to make UNI better.”

Levang and Stites are looking forward to taking some time to relax now that the campaign season has come to an end.

“We put together a really good campaign. I’m just proud of everyone who helped us out,” Stites said.

“I think more than anything, I’m just proud to say that I get to be in office next to this guy,” Levang said. “We’ve had a friendship for six years now, or seven, I don’t even know. I don’t know if I could’ve ever imagined seven years ago that we would be standing here together, but I’m definitely proud to say that we are.”